Old Wounds (Chance Assassin Book 4)

by Nicole Castle

  I flicked the switch on and off until Frank gave me a disparaging look, then I just shouted, “The house is on fire!” which got them both to sit up with a start. “It's not really. Yet. Hi!”

  They removed their masks, her looking terrified and holding the sheets up to cover her nightie and him looking like a disgruntled walrus. “Who the hell do you think you are?” he asked.

  I nudged Frank. “That's your cue, babe.”

  “Do I have to?” he complained.

  But he didn't, because Mrs. Alcott pointed at him and started repeating, “It's you it's you,” with her finger shaking in the air. Mr. Alcott looked to his wife, then back to us. He grabbed his glasses, and still didn't get it.

  I nudged Frank again. “Just do it.”

  He sighed, and with as little conviction as humanly possible, muttered, “My name is Frank Moreaux, you killed my father, prepare to die. Is this really necessary?”

  “And I'm his husband,” I added proudly, ignoring Frank's question.

  “Jesus bloody Christ,” Mr. Alcott said. “You're that French boy?”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “He is all man, baby,”

  “Killed your—your father had cancer.”

  “I paid someone to poison him,” Mrs. Alcott said under her breath.

  “You what?” he barked.

  “And son,” she added with a pointed look at Frank. “Mr. Reeves told me you'd been killed.”

  “Funny,” I said, “Mr. Reeves told us to kill you. Well, your husband, but we've taken it upon ourselves to kill you both. Let's see Harrods have that kind of two-for-one special.”

  Mr. Alcott's eyes widened and he turned to his wife, asking, “You bought an assassin at Harrods?”

  “Do shut up, Rupert,” she spat. Then she reached under her pillow, a flash of metal all I saw before Frank was on them.

  I fired my gun, shooting her in the face and splashing him with her blood before he could do it himself. Whether it was the noise or the blood shower that woke him up, Frank came around. He sheepishly blinked and wiped his face, then took the gun she hadn't gotten much farther than the headboard.

  “Your wife is crazy!” I exclaimed.

  Mr. Alcott opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, removed his glasses to wipe them on the only part of his sleeve that wasn't wet with his wife, and said, “Likewise.”

  “Husband,” I clarified, then shrugged and shot him to death as well. We were already fucked, may as well make it a good deep-dicking. “I told you that you weren't stealing my hit.”

  “Well this didn't go as planned,” said Monsieur Obvious.

  “It went a lot cleaner than it would've if you'd gotten hold of them,” I reminded him. “I totally could've used my rocket launcher.”

  Frank let his gaze track from me to the mess, then back to me. “You know, I'm actually quite satisfied regardless.” He came and hugged me, getting me all bloody as if one of us being covered in Alcott wasn't enough. “You will never be more beautiful than you are in this moment.”

  “Until next time.” I batted my eyelashes at him. “Or tomorrow. Whichever comes first. Whoever comes first?”

  “Let's go.” He gave me a playful shove towards the door. “You get to break the news to Joe.”

  “Nuh uh. That's all you.”

  “You killed them.”

  “You were gonna.”

  “Well, chances are I'm getting blamed regardless.”

  “Getting credit you mean,” I said.

  “We'll have to just make them disappear. Fortunately, Alan won't go to the police.”

  “He might when he sees what you did.”

  “What you did.”

  “At least he doesn't have to deal with fire damage.” It seemed rude to torch the place now. And anyway, Joe would be better at deciding the next course of action. Or inaction, since Frank and I were likely grounded for the indeterminate future. “Do you think they ate all those cookies?”

  “I sure hope not,” he sighed, and followed me to the kitchen.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I gave Frank the last cookie from the packet while he drove, high beams having little impact on the winding road in front of us. He waved it away, his left hand only off the wheel for a second when he swerved, the car going too fast, the turn too sharp, and through the spinning and crunching and screaming the only thing I could focus on was gunfire.

  The car stopped rolling with a final thump as it settled on its side. Frank was suspended above me by his seatbelt, hanging there limply, his hand dangling almost close enough to touch if I hadn't been smashed against my door. Blood dripped off his fingertips.

  Unbuckling my seatbelt, I rolled onto my knees to steady myself. Wrappers littered the shattered passenger side window. The last cookie. I clambered out through what was left of the windshield, the glass a giant warped spiderweb bent in on itself. Gripping the dented frame and shakily hauling myself to my feet, I blinked away blood as I took everything in.

  I'd heard two shots. They'd both hit him, center and right. He hadn't lost control of the wheel. He'd swerved to protect me.

  My feet gave away and I fell back to the ground, slumping against the roof of the car. I closed my eyes to stop the vertigo, my labored breathing sounding foreign, distant, so far removed from me that I could almost believe that the pain in my chest was from a lack of oxygen. If I could just inhale everything would be okay. If I could just inhale.

  Footsteps.

  I opened my eyes and the world was still. My breathing had slowed. I was no longer in any pain.

  Scooting alongside the upended car, I pulled my gun out and listened to the tentative approach of the shooter, visualizing how they walked with the gun raised, unsure of themselves. Light on their feet.

  Without taking a moment to consider it, I unscrewed the silencer and rotated the gun in my hand. They weren't getting off that easily.

  The figure had nearly reached the car, hooded sweatshirt, slim build. They were just about to peer into the driver's side window when I clocked them in the face with my gun, a startled, choked cry as they went down. A woman's voice.

  I looked down at her, eyes half-open, blood smearing her lips, her nose smashed in. Grace Alcott.

  “Oh no you didn't,” I said. She was dressed like a couture robber, a designer hoodie that looked tailored, jeans that came strategically torn. I unzipped her sweatshirt and rolled her onto her front, roughly tugging it off her and slitting it down the middle and up one sleeve, tying her hands and feet with the shreds and using the sleeve to gag her. Car keys had fallen out of her pocket and I picked them up, wrapping my hand around her hair and dragging her down the road.

  I kept pressing the key fob to locate the car until I saw headlights flash in the distance. She was starting to stir, to struggle, and I dropped her on her back, standing over her just long enough for her to recognize me before I retrieved my hold on her hair and kept going. “And here I thought sleeping with Henry Mortimer was the stupidest thing you could do.” I tossed her in the trunk of her Jag and stabbed the key into the ignition, the tightness returning to my chest as I drove back to Frank.

  He hadn't moved, still dangling there, reaching towards where I used to be. I didn't have to check if he was breathing, I knew it as surely as I knew that I was breathing.

  Kicking out the rest of the windshield, the bullet hole clear within the web of cracks, I cut his seatbelt and gently guided him out of the car feet first. “It's a good thing you didn't eat that last cookie,” I said as I maneuvered his much larger frame into my arms and draped him into the passenger seat of the Jag.

  The vertigo was back, my whole body quivering. My phone had found Sebastian's fate but Frank's was good to go, and I put it on speaker while I drove, repeating, “Left side left side” until Joe answered. “We need to meet somewhere,” I said desperately. “Close.”

  Joe didn't take the time to ask for an explanation. “Where are you now?”

  “Heading east, I think east, aw
ay from the house. Back the way we came.” The tears came on suddenly and I thought that had to be it, that Frank had just died beside me, but they stopped again as Joe began giving directions. Seven miles. Only the car was no longer moving. I lowered my head to see what was happening, why my foot was no longer pressing the gas, but all I could see was blackness seeping in. “How unprofessional,” I muttered, using everything I had to lean over and lay my head on Frank's lap before I passed out.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I was already crying when I woke up. Frank was no longer there. I couldn't feel him. Couldn't smell him. The room was dark and quiet. Everything hurt, a pain that would remain with me for the rest of my life. The one thing that would never abandon me. Never again.

  “Hey.” Joe stroked my forehead. X marked the spot where he'd shoot me in the face like he promised. He must've come to get us. Anticipated that we'd never make it. That I'd pass out. “He's not dead.” The yet hung heavily in the air.

  Tears had traced down my cheeks and pooled in my ears as I lay flat on my back, either on the floor or the world's worst mattress. Joe's coat was folded underneath my head for a pillow. “Where is she?” I asked, my voice flat, emotionless.

  “Vincent—”

  “Where is she.” This time it wasn't a question.

  Joe helped me to my feet, steering me away from where Frank must've been, just like Frank had steered me away from the Alcott's goody basket. Yesterday, or the day before. I didn't know. It didn't matter.

  There was light in the next room, enough to show that this was some sort of storeroom. Grace Alcott was tied to a chair in the center, shivering without her sweater. She wasn't gagged. By now she probably couldn't breathe out of her nose.

  I rubbed my face, some spots more tender than others. Swollen. I was exhausted in a way I hadn't imagined was possible. “Hi, Grace.”

  She raised her eyes to me. Tearful. Defiant.

  “You shot my husband.”

  “I hope I kill—” She shut up when I punched her in the teeth.

  Even with as quickly as I'd struck her, I felt a delay. Removed from it like I was an echo. My expression hadn't changed. Only my arm moved. My fist.

  “This isn't about your parents. If it were, you wouldn't have waited for us to kill them.”

  She stared straight ahead, some spot on the floor, a focal point that meant not looking at me.

  Joe was standing in the doorway, just waiting for instructions to meet my needs. There wasn't anything he could get me. He'd done all he could, save for one bullet with my name on it.

  “Henry, then.” I could still see him standing before me, a reversal of roles with Grace sitting now where I'd sat. I felt nothing even verging on empathy. “I take it you're not a fan of roses.”

  The glower she gave me was the first noticeable family resemblance between the Alcotts, and I suddenly felt like killing her parents all over again.

  “Frank loves roses,” I said. Loves. Not loved. “I could threaten you. Torture you for information. But honestly, you and I both know that nothing you say is going to make this better for you. This isn't going to be over for a long time.” I slapped her, more to make sure I still had her attention than wipe the snobbish expression off her face. That shit would take some serious scrubbing. “How'd you two lovebirds meet, huh? Through your humanitarianism?”

  “Yes,” she said meekly.

  I scoffed. “And you thought you'd help him find his long lost brother? Pull a few strings to get an old juvenile record.”

  “I knew what he wanted it for.”

  Now that I had to admit, was a surprise. “To kill him because Daddy loved him more than Henry?”

  “Those children that I helped, they were so appreciative. Not like the people I grew up with, who got everything they wanted and appreciated none of it.”

  “Oh my god you are getting dumber by the second.” I set my foot against her knees and kicked the chair backwards to the ground. “You and Henry deserved each other.”

  “And you killed him!” she cried.

  “Frank killed him.” I gestured to the scar above my eyebrow where Henry had split my face open. “Do you see this scar? No, you don't, it's barely visible because I'm just that pretty, but that's not the point. Henry did that, because he was a whining, spoiled little brat like you. But at least he had the benefit of being bat shit crazy. You're going through all this trouble for someone who was just using you.”

  “He loved me!” she spat.

  “Bitch, please. He fucked a fifty-year-old bible thumping spinster in IDAHO to get information to lure Frank to him, so don't even start with that star-crossed lovers bullshit.”

  She flinched, whatever seed of doubt she'd had about him was growing.

  “How did you know he was dead?” I asked, then laid the sarcasm on thick. “Did he fail to meet you at the appointed time, in the appointed place? It's a very romantic notion.”

  Fresh tears fell, a highly satisfying effect of my taunting. “Simon told me.”

  “Did you meet him with Mummy?”

  “I followed her,” she sniffled. “She met with him, and I followed her. Then I followed him.”

  “A man like Simon could easily track someone down for you. So what, you got to talking, offered to split their life insurance with him?”

  “As long as I got to be the one to kill Henry's brother.”

  Simon's band of assassins hadn't been saving Frank for Yuri. They were saving Frank for her. But Simon had played one thing right: he knew we'd kill husband and wife, and that we'd make it look accidental. That had been the plan anyway.

  “I'd like you to say his name. Henry's brother.”

  She glared at me and sighed, “Frank Moreaux.”

  I kicked her hard in the ribs. “Sullivan-Moreaux,” I corrected, not that she would've had any way of knowing we'd hyphenated. “I'm gonna drown you now.”

  Dragging her and the chair across the room to the large industrial sink, I debated between hot and cold. Hot would've likely been more uncomfortable for her, but this was more about principles. Frank was terrified of drowning. The water that haunted him was cold.

  I tied her long blonde hair in a knot behind her head as the sink filled. “Did you meet the others?”

  Her voice was barely audible as she asked, “What others?”

  “I was hoping you'd say that.” I gripped her hair and tipped her forward, holding her head just deep enough in the water to cover her mouth and nose. There was already blood on the sides of the sink, Frank's blood, mine, and now the water around her face tinted pink as she struggled. I yanked her back and she gasped for air, the blood from her nose now flowing freely down over her chin. I plunged her in again. “Others,” I said calmly, lifting her to the surface of the water so she sucked it up and coughed it out again in her quest to breathe. “Yuri? Sebastian?”

  “I don't—” Bubbles floated up.

  “Serge? Oui, Michele?”

  Grace adamantly shook her head. I knocked the chair over so she fell to the floor, banging hard against the side of her face. As blood began to meld with the growing puddle of water around her, I said, “I believe you.” Really I believed our fellow art enthusiasts and murderers, as well as our torture techniques on the rest of Simon's army. They hadn't been told about Grace, and she knew nothing about them.

  I sat on the side of the felled chair, taking her hands in mine. She was bound at the wrists and elbows, knees and ankles. She still tried to pull away from me. I broke her little finger, just grabbed and snapped, and she let out an anguished little scream. Remembering what Nasir had said, I switched to the other hand, back and forth until they were all misshapen. Then I started cutting them off.

  She passed out somewhere between the third and fourth amputation with my little pocketknife. Without saying a word, Joe tossed me a packet of smelling salts. I would've caught it if my hands hadn't been so slick with blood. Then he tossed me a pair of pliers. Those I caught.

  Chapter Forty-
Three

  I'd spent more time torturing Grace Alcott than I'd spent watching some reasonably entertaining TV series on Netflix. She was as alert as she'd ever be again, bleeding inside and out, all her teeth gone. She had nothing left to tell me. Not that she could talk.

  “Well, Grace, it seems we've reached the end of my patience. What about yours?”

  She blinked her one remaining eye. She couldn't lift her head.

  “We're gonna frame you for your parents' murders, by the way. Thought you'd like to know.” I took my time loading my gun to capacity. One gun fired until empty, just like Frank had killed Henry. Twelve shots. Rapid succession. But as I aimed at her, I found I couldn't pull the trigger. I couldn't grant her that mercy.

  Sweeping some bloody, matted hair off her forehead, I leaned in close to her and said, “Your roots are showing.” Then I tweaked her nose and put my gun away. “Let her die on her own.”

  Joe nodded. He'd stood in the doorway the whole time. He hadn't said a thing.

  I didn't bother washing my hands. I just wanted to lie down with Frank and die. He was waiting for me.

  “Sorry about the mess, Joe.” I wasn't sure whether I meant the mess I'd made with Grace or the one I would make when he shot me.

  “That's what I'm here for.” He followed me out of the room.

  Miranda was sitting beside Frank, holding his hand. She'd taken off all of her rings. Frank still wore his. I still wore mine.

  He was on a makeshift cot, the blood underneath him dry. Grace's aim had been good. With the placement of the bandages, best case scenario was shoulder, worst case, chest. And a gut shot. The most painful, as Yuri had said. At least Frank wasn't conscious for the pain.

  Miranda stood when we approached, taking her place at Joe's side as I limped forward like walking to the gallows. They whispered to each other, the hushed voices of bad news. Of pragmatism and little hope.